A widely used storage medium for storing information is storage tape, such as magnetic tape. Storage tapes are mounted in various types of tape cassettes or cartridges. The cassette or cartridge is loaded into a tape drive which includes a tape head used to read and write data to the magnetic tape.
Some tape drives include a flexible circuit that is coupled to the tape head. Flexible circuits route traces that electrically connect read and write elements of the tape head to respective read and write circuitry mounted elsewhere in the tape drive, such as on a circuit board.
Flexible circuits are commonly configured to roll through a single loop as the actuator moves up and down. The location of the loop changes as the actuator moves, but the radius of the loop remains constant. If the flexible circuit improperly bends or flexes while the tape head moves, then fatigue and stress can shorten the lifespan of the flexible circuit.